butterfly wings
by winteredspark
Summary: /One tear slides down her cheek. "I've already lost myself," she whispers and leaves before she can see his face. clip a butterfly's wings and watch it tumble amidst a haze of twinkling stars; it will never fly again./ Or the loss of an identity.


**|butterfly wings|**

She's never the same after their family vacation - perhaps it is the thought that she nearly lost her family, or perhaps it is the precaution never to trust just with the quick glimpse of the naked eye.

(no, it's really not. dreams sing, memories dance -

- _I'd never leave you_.)

.

They argue in vicious cycles (and it never bothered her before so this ache is disconcerting.)

"Give me back the remote, Alex."

She bites her lower lip, kneading it with her teeth as though actually considering his demand. "Finders keepers, losers weepers."

His bushy eyebrows rise and she knows she's pushing his buttons in the way that sets her aflame. At least she can count on a flash of emotion from her brother - if anger, then so be it.

"I only got up -"

"- to drink one of those 'get buff' shakes from the fridge." She cuts him off easily. "You buff - the thought's laughable to say the least, Justin."

One year ago: he would have whined for a moment and then went to get dad. Six months ago: he would have contemplated casting a hex on her and then pouted before giving in.

Now: he just walks away and leaves her feeling more empty than ever before.

.

She tosses and turns at night, smashing her fists into her pillow because it simply won't conform to the shape of her head (and her parents are too cheap to buy her a new one.)

3 am finds her slumped against one of the barstools in the kitchen. She's using her wand to prepare pancakes - because she hasn't gone on her monthly pancake run with her dad for so long now but she's too lazy to actually fix them herself, thus the use of magic.

"Are you okay?" She's gotten soft, having not seen him slip from the shadows of the staircase.

"Since when," she says, "do you care?" The carton of orange juice floats from the fridge along with a blue, plastic glass; she watches magic prepare her a cup of OJ right in front of Justin's tired yet clearly perturbed expression.

Bruised, gray eyes stare at her from their hollow caverns - and she's not sure when they made her breath catch in her chest; all she knows is that the feelings crushing her chest scare her beyond belief. "I don't know," he whispers, and then turns and heads back off to bed.

She dumps everything (plate and cup included, because she just doesn't care) into the trash. From then on she takes sleeping pills every night.

.

Mason notices her blank stare in the sub shop. "Yo, Russo, wanna smooch?"

Once upon a time she would have laughed at his imitation of Dean but now - now she pictures drooping roses in her mind and wonders when she because so serious, so much like Justin.

"Can you just go?" Her voice sounds worn. Dull brown eyes meet the hurt expression on her boyfriend's face but for once she doesn't want to care about anyone else but herself (even though she sort of did that before.)

He comes back six times - and leaves twenty seven messages on her cell phone that she ignores - before giving up on her.

(Waves crash and threaten to drown everything she's built up.)

.

"Honey," her mom says one evening when they're at the dinner table, "you look so pale."

They never eat at the dinner table; it feels wrong somehow, as if they are tearing tradition to pieces and letting it skip away in the winds of time.

Tearing her eyes away from the doodles Max (in girl form) is making with a strand of spaghetti, she forces a smile.

(It's more difficult than she thought it would be. Who thought the day would come when Alex Russo felt the crushing weight of lies?)

"I'm just having trouble sleeping." It's the truth, somewhat. There's so much more to the puzzle, however, that she's not willing to discuss; and they all seem to trace back to the empty seat at the table, the spot where Justin should be sitting.

.

She waits and waits for her brother to come home. Her legs fall asleep where she's curled them in the faded armchair and her fingers trace the edges of her wand - sometimes she just wants to snap her wand and watch the magic fade away from her.

After all, magic equals expression and laughter, joy and amazement. It requires faith in oneself she didn't realize was so hard to maintain.

The portal in the Lair lights up to a blinding white as he enters then, his black hair slightly dishelved. A small smile touches his lips and she discovers with a start that it might only be her that is suffering from what happened.

_("please don't leave me." "i'd never leave you."_)

"You're up late," he says as he stows his wand in his back pocket.

"So are you." She rises up, finding that her arms and legs quiver in the process. "Where did you go?"

He gives her a look as if to wonder why she's nosing her way into his business. "I was out with Rosie," he replies finally. She pretends not to notice the way his voice softens when he talks about the angel that changed his life.

"I thought you gave her up," she says tightly - so, so constricted, in her thoughts, in her breathing, and yet her heartbeat gallops ahead. "I thought she made you lose yourself."

"We were just talking," Justin says just as tightly. "Besides, why do you care? It's not like you were ever very close to Rosie; actually, I do believe you despised her."

She turns to go - because she just can't stand the fire in his tone; it ceased to make her feel so alive long ago - and glances back at her brother. He is running his fingers over a single, white feather, his face more peaceful than she's ever seen it. "Maybe I want to catch up with Tina, or - or something." Lies, lies, her brain hisses.

Justin frowns and doesn't meet her tired gaze, "And here you are lecturing _me_ on how I'll lose myself. Oh the hypocrisy."

One tear slides down her cheek. One tear burns as it trails across skin before dropping to the floor.

"I've already lost myself," she whispers and leaves before she can see his face.

(Waves flood the expanse of her heart and crash through hopes and dreams - all breaks sooner or later, sooner in her case.)

.

She sleeps fitfully, her body clothed in sweat and her breathing catching every few seconds.

(dreams, she discovers, can be horrible, horrible things -

_clip a butterfly's wings and watch it tumble amidst a haze of twinkling stars; happiness, what a thought_.)

Eyes flash open and stare at the wall in front of them, tracing shapes in the smothering darkness. Boiling tears tremble and then fall like blazing comets that once held majestic prowess over all.

(_i'd never leave you_.)

"But you already have," she whispers into the deafening silence.

.

They fight once more.

"Give me my wand," she orders through clenched teeth. Magic suddenly seems like such a frail thing when not in her possession.

He glares at her, "You must not want it very much, considering I found it in the garbage outside our front door."

Eyes connect and she finds it hard to breathe; sometimes when she looks at him she finds herself drowning in pools of silver.

"Give me my wand," she repeats, and tries to tug it away from him. Accidentally her leg flies into his gut and he hisses, his hand flying through the air.

_Slap. _

Everything burns - and through the wash of tears she watches her life crumble into burning pieces at her feet - and her fingers prod a fast forming bruise on her cheek as she stands there crying in front of her brother.

He looks mortified at his thoughtless action and nearly reaches out to her, but hesitates just as his pinky finger touches her shoulder. Then, as if to offer up a peace treaty, he sets her wand by her feet and walks out of the room.

.

Later that evening Max is going to take out the trash - but the real question comes into play when one wonders where he will deposit this trash - when he spots a familiar shard of wood resting on the kitchen table.

"Justin," he calls out, figuring this calls for a serious tone, "you should come see this."

Justin's face falls as his hands clench around the broken fragments of her wand.

(_clip a butterfly's wings and watch it fall, painting the skies in scarlet_.)

.

She lies in bed and closes her eyes tightly (because maybe if she lies her long enough she can float away to a life where nothing makes sense - Max seems to live in such a realm and it hasn't done him harm) and wishes not to dream.

_("i taunt you and i tease you and i make your life miserable but you love me anyways; please don't leave me here." "i'd never leave you."_)

"When did you forget about that promise?" She whispers to no one in particular, her limbs shivering.

Warm arms wrap around her waist and a head bows into her shoulder and a body curls around hers and she realizes that she laid down in Justin's bed by mistake. Eyes that forget to see often lead to such mistakes, she determines.

"I'd never leave you." His voice travels softly and his lips press against the back of her neck, sending a flurry of butterflies bursting to life in her stomach. She thought she lost them that last evening in the forest, back when dreams weren't filled with haunted memories.

"You already did." She presses her lips against his for one sweet moment and then she's gone.

(_waves crash and she drowns in a sea of dreams_.)

.

People wonder whatever happened to the girl named Alex Russo that used to live on Waverly Place.

She kneels before a plain grave in a long forgotten cemetary and places white - pure as the snow - flowers by the headstone. Beneath the earth lies the shattered pieces of her wand, a life she has long shed and walked away from.

She never kisses another soul - and cherishes the tender feel of his lips on hers in a memory, the way it was supposed to be - and never visits her family again.

Eyes like charcoal pass across the rim of the sky and remember flying.

(_clip a butterfly's wings and watch it tumble amidst a haze of twinkling stars; it will never fly again_.)

.

**|fin|**

.

**So, I did like how this came out, although it doesn't have a happy ending. Unfortunately not all stories do, but I hope you enjoyed it nevertheless. **


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